Indian Point Plant Remains Offline After a Fire

BUCHANAN, N.Y. — A New York nuclear power plant remained offline Sunday after a transformer fire sent thousands of gallons of oil leaking into the Hudson River, officials said.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said emergency crews were on the water near Buchanan trying to contain and clean up transformer fluid that leaked from the reactor, Indian Point 3.

“There’s no doubt that oil was discharged into the Hudson River,” Mr. Cuomo said. “Exactly how much, we don’t know.”

It could be weeks before Indian Point 3 is reopened, said a spokesman for Entergy Corporation, the plant owner.

The transformer at the plant about 30 miles north of Midtown Manhattan failed on Saturday evening, causing a fire that forced the automatic shutdown.

Mr. Cuomo revealed on Sunday that even after the blaze on the nonnuclear side of the plant was quickly doused, the heat reignited the fire, which had to be extinguished again.

The governor said oil in the transformer had seeped into a holding tank that did not have the capacity to contain all the fluid, which then entered river waters through a discharge drain.

Joseph Martens, commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Conservation, said measures were taken to keep the oil from spreading, including setting up booms over an area about 300 feet in diameter in the water.

The cleanup should take a day or two, Mr. Cuomo said.

A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said several thousand gallons of oil may have overflowed the transformer moat.

The reactor itself was deemed safe and stable, said Jerry Nappi, a spokesman for Entergy, which operates the plant. The plant’s adjacent Unit 2 reactor was not affected and remained in operation. Unit 1 was shut down in 1974.

The Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan supplies electricity for millions of homes, businesses and public facilities in New York City and Westchester County.

“These situations we take very seriously,” Mr. Cuomo said on Saturday. “Luckily this was not a major situation. But the emergency protocols are very important.”

The transformer at Indian Point 3 takes energy created by the plant and changes the voltage for the grid supplying power to the state.

The blaze, which sent black smoke billowing into the sky, was extinguished by a sprinkler system and on-site personnel, Mr. Nappi said.

He said a foamlike substance containing animal protein and fat was used to put out the fire, leaving an oily sheen on the water. He said he could not confirm that fluid from the transformer leaked beyond the holding tank.

It was not immediately clear what caused the initial failure.

Officials did not know how long the 1,000-megawatt reactor would be down. Mr. Nappi estimated it could be “a few weeks” before Indian Point 3 reopened.

Mr. Cuomo said there had been too many emergencies recently involving Indian Point. Unit 3 was shut down Thursday morning for an unrelated issue — a water leak on the nonnuclear side of the plant.

“We have to get to the bottom of this,” the governor said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: A Reactor at Indian Pt. is Still Offline After a Fire. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe